


after the strike

by challaudaku



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26198293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/challaudaku/pseuds/challaudaku
Summary: Albert waits until they’re safely back at the lodging house to hug Crutchie half to death.
Relationships: Albert DaSilva/Crutchie
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	after the strike

**Author's Note:**

> i cant stop thinking about "yo crutchie wouldve felt so betrayed by jack" and also. crutchiealbert. so.

Albert waits until they’re safely back at the lodging house to hug Crutchie half to death.

“Are you okay?” Albert asks, pulling back and cupping Crutchie’s face in his hands. He  _ looks _ fine — he’s bruised, of course, but so are all of them, so. 

“Just like the last eight times you asked,  _ yes _ ,” Crutchie says, rolling his eyes a little bit. 

“I know, I just —” Albert says, cutting himself off because he’s not sure how to explain that it’s felt a little bit like he was holding his breath, not sure if Crutchie would  _ live _ . It’s been a little bit suffocating, that on top of everything that was going on.

“I know,” Crutchie says, and then he presses his lips to Albert’s and Albert feels like he’s breathing again.

Albert grabs Crutchie’s hand and leads him to his bed. Crutchie sits down first, and Albert sits down across the bed, digging his toes into Crutchie’s leg. It’s probably one of his favorite positions to be in, but something in him can’t sit still. Albert shifts, moving to tuck his legs underneath him, and then to put his head on Crutchie’s shoulder, and then to go back to digging his toes into Crutchie’s leg. Finally, he settles with his head in Crutchie’s lap, and the feeling of Crutchie’s fingers in his hair feels so nice and familiar.

Still, it doesn’t feel like the strike is really over. Albert’s half-convinced he’s going to wake up tomorrow with the price for a hundred papers at sixty cents and with Crutchie locked in the refuge and with Jack —

Albert doesn’t want to think about that. He desperately doesn’t want to think about that.

“What happened?” Crutchie asks, his fingers steadily running through Albert’s hair. “With the strike, I mean.”

Albert takes a big breath in because he’s not over it yet. How is he supposed to explain it all to Crutchie?

“We got in the papes,” Albert says, because he knows he  _ should _ get into the bad part of it all, but he can at least start out lighthearted. 

“Yeah?” Crutchie asks. 

“Yeah,” Albert breathes out, his eyes fluttering shut as he focuses on the feel of Crutchie’s fingers. “Front page ‘n’ all. I think JoJo has a copy, if you want.”

“Tomorrow,” Crutchie says, and Albert’s heart swells, because that’s as good as a promise that Crutchie’s staying with him tonight. “How did you guys get Pulitzer to give in.”

“Daves did the fancy talking,” Albert tells him, still toeing around the big part. “Walkin’ Mouth and all.”

“I wouldn’t expect any less,” Crutchie says, letting out a little laugh.

“We held a rally,” Albert says, and he’s  _ so close _ to it. “Every newsie was there, so we could have a vote on the strike.”

“And you guys decided on the city-wide strike there?” Crutchie asks. “With all the kid workers?”

“Not exactly,” Albert whispers. He knows that he could just say  _ yeah _ and have that be the end of the story, but that’s  _ not _ the end of the story. Albert also knows that Crutchie is going to find out the full story at some point, and he’d rather Crutchie hear it from him than anyone else.

“What?” Crutchie asks. Albert wonders if Crutchie can feel how tense he is right now. Probably, Albert figures, as Crutchie moves his fingers slowly through his hair.

“Jack sold us out,” Albert says, his voice low. He can still picture it, Jack telling them to vote no for the strike, Jack getting thrown into the wings, Jack accepting money from one of Pulitzer’s lackeys. His heart still hurts from it.

“What?” Crutchie says, his voice sounding weak, strained.

“He sold us out,” Albert says, a bit louder. “He showed up at the strike, started saying this stuff about how Pulitzer promised to not raise prices for two years, said that we should vote no. Then some guy handed him a wad of cash and he —”

“What the fuck,” Crutchie says, and Albert cringes a little bit at the curse word, but honestly,  _ he _ cursed when he saw all of it. 

Albert’s close with Jack, yeah, but he’s not Jack’s best friend — that title is Crutchie’s. If it hurt Albert that much to see Jack betray them, how much would it have hurt Crutchie? Even now, from just hearing about it, Albert can feel the waves of emotion coming off of him. His fingers are still in Albert’s hair, and he can feel how tense Crutchie’s body is.

“Why are we still talking to him?” Crutchie asks, and the pure  _ bitterness _ in his voice hits Albert like a slap. “Why didn’t I let him fuck off to Santa Fe?”

“He —” Albert hesitates, because there’s a part of him that doesn’t know. There’s a part of him that wishes Jack  _ had _ gone. “He explained it to Race and Davey, and they trust him,” Albert decides on, because he doesn’t even know the full story, but he trusts their forgiveness. “I’d trust Race with my life, so.”

“And I trusted Jack with mine,” Crutchie says, simple as that.

“Yeah,” Albert says, feeling the bitterness rolling off of Crutchie. His own bitterness is becoming reignited, so he can’t even really blame him.

“What happened to seizing the fucking day, huh?” Crutchie says, his voice catching at the end. Albert doesn’t want to look up, because he’s not sure he could take that, seeing Crutchie cry. 

Crutchie’s question runs around in his head, and he trusts Race, he trusts Davey. He  _ had _ trusted Jack, and in the end it was them going along with Jack’s plan that got them to win.

But how could Jack leave them in the middle of it all? What reason is good enough? For money to freaking Santa Fe?

_ How could he do that? _

**Author's Note:**

> day 24, auction two, seize the day (974 words by gdocs)


End file.
